1 Star: As One Devil to Another by Richard Platt

If Satan were going to write a "Christian book" to trick people, he could either write a book that claims to be true but subtlely actually teaches lies, or he could write a book that overtly bashes demons (causing Christians to lower their defenses) while the book subtlely actually bashed God. This book is the later. A good number of Christians discern and expect that a book that claims to teach the truth might actually be teaching a lie, but few expect a book that claims to bash evil to actually bash good. This book is very clever, but then so is Satan. This would be one of the last books a Christian would expect to find false teachings in, exactly because it bashes demons. No one expects Satan to bash demons. But if Satan can do damage to your image of God, I'm certain he has no problem bashing demons. Besides, would an evil being like Satan really have a problem treating evil demons bad? No. If Satan were to write a book, he would write this book. And I think he did. (All lies are from Satan)

I haven't read C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters, so this review is on this book alone. This book was so weird and different from any other book I have ever read, which alone is not a bad thing. As I read it, I took notes and hoped to come across interesting ideas, while watching carefully to make sure the teachings in this book were Biblical. This book only partially fulfilled my quest for interesting ideas but dangerously failed biblical accuracy because it teaches outright lies in the most subtle ways. This fictional tale strayed from biblical ideas in so many ways as to dangerously imply false ideas about the character of God. I encourage any readers to be very careful when reading this book and carefully use a LOT of discernment.
The perspective of this book is so odd and weird and I did not enjoy reading a book from the first person view of a demon. It felt blasphemous. Because the demon is the main character "good guy" and God is the "bad guy" and everything is written from the demon's perspective, the entire book is backwards: Good is bad and bad is good. This can become confusing and I even think the author confused himself in some areas, forgetting who was good and bad. In this book, God is evil (highly dangerous to ever encourage such thinking) and called "The Adversary". The problem with this demon-first-person style is that this book can easily do more damage to the character of God than any good. I would never ever ever recommend this book to a new or even teenage Christian. It could end up warping a Christian's view to think less of God or question God's goodness.

Examples of unbiblical dangerous teachings on God: Page 31, "The Adversary (God in this book) uses stealth. Despite His claptrap about honesty and fairness, He is very unscrupulous. He breaks His own rules whenever it suits Him." Woah! The Bible never claims God is "fair". "Fair" is a human concept. Just the fact that Israel and the Jews were God's people in the OT, while nearly all Gentile nations demonstrates that God is not a god of "fairness". And that is okay. Because God is not only a god of Love but of Justice. And if we start from the perspective that no human deserves anything good, then "fairness" is irrelevant. All humans have sinned and failed to worship God as He is worthy to be worshipped. We don't deserve heaven, but hell. So if God has mercy on some and not all, no wrong has been committed. The other part of this I don't like is the idea that "a demon thinks God is dishonest, unscrupulous, breaks His own rules". The Bible demonstrates that demons know who God and Jesus Christ are and know the TRUTH of who they are. Demons rebel but they are not unaware that God is good. They are not tricked. They fully know God is all powerful, all good, all honest, etc. Demons know that Jesus doesn't "play tricks" and they know that Jesus is honest. But the author, Platt, can start to make a Christian question or doubt their own God because they are reading the demon's lies about God. Sometimes Platt has the demons telling how God is good (which to them is bad) but later, the demons tell that God is bad. Did Platt forget which perspective he wanted to use or confuse himself or is this a subtle trick that most readers will not notice?

Platt subtlely plants seeds in readers. The idea of this book is this: "If the demons are against it, we Christians should be for it." So on page 19, Platt describes a scene where the demons are applauding their efforts to get all the most edifying literature and authors' works out of human hands and have intentionally pushed these writings into obscurity. So who's writings would you expect these demons tirelessly working to hide? The Bible must be on the list, right? Nope. Then at least Martin Luther, John Calvin, St. Augustine, Charles Spurgeon, Jonathan Edwards or even Jacob Arminian or John Wesley? Nope. These most famous authors don't make Platt's list of "most edifying writings." Instead, he lists two writings: "The story of Beowulf" and "the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight". Huh? Why? Beowulf is an epic poem about a PAGAN man named Beowulf, who travels great distances to prove his strength at impossible odds against supernatural demons and beasts. Sir Gawain is a romantic powem in King Arthur's day that is steeped in Celtic, Germanic, and other folklore and cultural traditions. How are fictional works more worthy than highly edifying Christian works?

Next Platt lists 8 authors by last name only. The implication is that these authors were so famous that we should recognize them by last name only. Platt works the story up to make the reader automatically assume that these authors are so worthy of our recognition and attention that demons will work tirelessly to hide them from us Christians. Who are the 8? Platt lists them "Johnson (which Johnson out of a dozen could this be?), Cowper, Spenser, Traherne, Cowley, Bunyan, Chesterton, and Williams (how many Williams' do you know?). How many names did you recognize? For me 2: John Bunyan (a worthy mention) and G.K. Chesterton (a Catholic that many non-Catholics read). Who are the other 6? And why are these guys more worthy to be listed than Luther, Calvin, Spurgeon, Wesley (who people actually do know by last name only) who dedicated their lives to bringing others to Christ? Per wikipedia, Thomas Traherne was a post-Reformation Catholic priest and mystic who wrote little about sin and is accused of bordering upon pantheism (or perhaps panentheism). Why should the demons hide his writings and why should Platt promote them? Edmund Spencer, Abraham Crowley, and Cowper were all English poets. Wow. I think these guys were already so obscure and unknown that the demons wouldn't have to even work to hide their works. They are already unknown to the greater Christian world, unless you specialize in poetry. I see the mention of these names and works only as a promotion of Platt's favorite writings and as having little or nothing to do with Christianity.

Other areas of disagreement:
Pg 33 "Each human is to be utterly, appallingly unique, and yet gloriously united to the Adversary" (Universalism?)
Pg 33 Teaches that "The Adversary had to submit to death by torture" "to redeem a fallen world and snatch it back from the claws to His Infernal Majesty" (God never lost the world to Satan. God was always in control. God never had to come up with a plan B. Plan A included the fall and Christ's redeeming a people for God. God did not HAVE to come up with a Plan B and die in order to "pay Satan off to let humans go", as this sentence may imply. God designed the whole redemption story from start to end before the creation of the world.)
Pg 37 Main character demon warns student demon not to touch C.S. Lewis books or "they will sear your flesh beyond recognition". (Platt is teaching a sort of superstition here. That "Christian books have power to burn/sear demons?" This is not true at all. Besides, as of recently, C.S. Lewis, who was heavily into the occult and mythologies, has come to be regarded by some as "a false Christian" after deeper analysis of Lewis' writings. It was demonstrated that Lewis' writings portray "Jesus" (Aslan the lion) leading Satanic pagan gods in drunken orgistic rituals and these pagan characters are considered "good characters" in Lewis' Narnia books. Example: The famous Satan god Pan (the goat man with an erection) is the good guy Mr. Tummnus. And the Greek dying-and-resurrecting pagan god Dionysus (a false Christ)(called Bacchus in Rome) the man-womanish male god of wine along with his wild female followers the maenads and the drunken fat man Silenus riding his donkey (mocking Christ) are all portrayed by their exact pagan names as "good guys" that Aslan lead through the forest in a wild pagan ritualistic party. Wiki or google this for more info, if you like. Wiki itself says "Silenus is a character, along with Bacchus, in the C.S. Lewis fantasy novel Prince Caspian, the second book (or fourth, depending on the order they are arranged) in The Chronicles of Narnia series." and I've checked my library Narnia books and found all this to be true. Lewis unashamedly made pagan gods that mock Jesus Christ to be "good guys" in his book.

Let me skip toward the end:
Pg 153 Platt writes "The Adversary (God) says He offers us all: Himself and life everlasting" Then Platt has the demons berate God for claiming to be good but actually being evil and dangling love before them but then not giving it to them and lastly, that God "promulgated the absurd notion that [salvation] is quite simple [but that] it is [actually] utterly beyond our understanding, this is an obvious lie. We are not stupid." (Look how ugly this makes God look. First, God does not offer Himself to demons. There is NO redemption for demons. Second, God does not say that salvation is simple. "Simple" is an easily misunderstood word. As you can see from listening to or reading Michael Horton or John MacArthur's Gospel According to Jesus, the way to salvation what many would call "hard" or "impossible" because we must die to ourselves and love God. Who loves God? No one! None seeks after the Lord. (Rom 3) When the apostles asked "Who then can be saved?" Jesus said "For man that is impossible but with God all things are possible!" (Mt 19:26, Mk 10:27, Lk 18:27). This means that man cannot save himself. Only God can save man - completely, from start to end. Even our faith and repentance are gifts from God per the Bible.)

One of the biggest problems with Platt's writings is that he has the demons question and challenge the goodness of God in humanistic terms: on the basis of fairness and love. Humans cannot help but relate with the demons' views and doubt or question God in the same way the demons do. In essence, this book throws demons and humans in the same boat. They are unloved by God and feel unloved and unfairly treated and God lies to both demons and humans claiming it is easy to be saved, when it is impossible to be saved. It makes readers feel like God is just playing a big nasty tricky game on us all and we are just pawns in His unloving game. The questions the demons ask are sometimes valid questions, but more often than not, they are loaded questions that already make false assumptions and imply false ideas about God's character. I would guess that 75%-90% or more Christians will be mislead and not catch this. I highly recommend against this book, unless you really really know what your stuff. I encourage all Christians to learn the answers to REAL unbiased questions about Christianity and God. But this book is loaded with biased tricky questions that will make many doubt or question God just because of the underlying implied assumptions built into the questions.

3 Stars: A Shot of Faith (to the Head) by Mitch Stokes, PHD

I figured because I'm a college grad and can read and comprehend some of the old dead guy Reformers in old English, that I could grasp the logic of this book and gain some real insight. But in the end, I must say that this book was painful, tedious, and plain old boring. Unless you have a PHD like the author or naturally love logic, I would guess that you will not enjoy this book. The author does not bring his concepts down to an easy-to-grasp level. Reading slowly and carefully, I was able to follow the author's logic, but the subject matter and ideas were so dry, who would want to read this? The back of the book doesn't quite portray what the book is like. It gives us interesting topics that sound promising: be able to logically state your beliefs when up against athiests and the ability to logically see that Christianity is more logical than athiesm. But instead, the book starts out dry, slow to anything interesting. If you aren't already good at logic, you will go "okay" "okay" "okay" but unless you do a lot of studying, you will not be able to use these concepts in real life. The book is beneficial, if you can get through it and grasp the concepts, so I give it 3 stars. Rather than this book, I would recommend the DVD "The Truth Project" which does an even better job explaining logically to a lay person how a Christian worldview actually makes much much more sense than an athiest view. If you do read this book, I would recommend you skip directly to chapter 4 unless you want to know:

The Introduction is focused on athiests like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens and their bashing of Christianity. "Dawkins thinks that a religious upbringing is worse than most forms of child abuse." Stokes explains that athiests declared religion dead, but then Christians started using logic to demonstrate that religion is not irrational, and so God made a comeback.

Chapter 1 is about "evidentialism [the] require[ment] that all beliefs be supported by evidence". As I was reading this, I was agreeing that evidentialism is true. We use logic and evidence to support our beliefs. But the author surprised me by stating that it is false. This chapter was okay to read.

Chatper 2 is explaining why evidentialism is false. Why? Because once you give some evidence, you must give evidence for THAT evidence and evidence for THAT evidence, endlessly into infinity. So the alternative to evidentialism is either to cut the requirement for evidence short (which most of us logically allow) or to create a circular argument. This chapter was painful and boring to read.

Chapter 3 focuses more on pointing out why those who hold evidentialism are illogical and wrong. Very boring chapter. Painful to read.

The rest of the book picks up a little more but I still did not enjoy the author's writing style. He argues that athiests demand a logical argument/reason to believe in God. However, using reasonable arguments to "prove God" would negate taking God on "faith". If we know something 100%, we don't need to use faith to believe. We believe through reason. To believe on faith, there must be some belief that is not tied to proof. Stokes does warn readers not to take faith too far into unreasonable, illogical conclusions - God is not the author of confusion.

By the end, Stokes does address all those questions that you and I want to know from the back of the book and more. He addresses Darwin/evolution, the argument for intelligent design, how God and science fit together logically, and Stokes even addresses the subject of evil. I enjoyed learning that non-Christian scientists don't have any logical answers and was shocked by some of their claims that don't hold to any sort of logic at all. Although I am glad I read this book, I would not recommend it to the average reader. Instead, I would highly recommend the much easier, much more comprehensive (much more expensive) DVD called "The Truth Project." The Truth Project is worldview changing and something all Christians should watch.

My disclaimer - I received this book from the publisher but I am not required to give a positive review. I always give brutally honest reviews and attempt to critically point out parts of the book that may not appeal to others. I want you readers to be able to confidently choose a book based on the stars I give it, because I know you have limited money, time and energy to read. So let's make the most of our lives and choose the very best books.

1 Star: Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd Jones

I thought this was going to be the greatest bible book for children on earth. I bought it to read to my nephew and niece because it is so important to me that they grow up knowing and loving God. I thought the author might be related to the famous Martin Lloyd Jones and I saw this book recommended from a Reformed Booksite, so I loved this book before I even read it. But once I read it, I was completely floored by its teachings. It is probably the biggest disappointment of any book I've ever read. It's completely the opposite of what I expected.

#1 or #2 goal of most Christian parents = saved Christian kids. This book works against this goal. Before you read my review, understand why I disagree with this book and believe it destroys the holiness of God and leads our children towards a worldly unsaved life, rather than a strong conviction of who God is and who man is - a sinner in need of Christ. I believe God is INFINITELY powerful, glorious, intelligent, all-knowing and sovereign. Nothing can happen that could defeat God, or He would not be God. He would then only be "a god", but the thing that beat him or defeated Him would also be "a god" if it could outsmart an infinite god. You would have God and Satan as two equal gods, which is not Christianity, it is called Dualism. For God to really be God, He must always get His way 100% of the time. After all, if he is INFINITELY superior to all creation, nothing could ever beat Him, outsmart Him, or make God come up with a Plan B. God NEVER had a Plan B. Everything that happens is in His Plan A.

We all want our children to be saved, right? How do we get saved? Humans must come to realize their need for God, or we will always seek satisfaction in the world. Until we finally realize how utterly unworthy we are, how lost in sin we are, and how much we can't ever stop sinning on our own, we will never need God. When we finally die to ourselves, giving up our self-righteous deeds and efforts to earn our way into heaven, we will fall broken and humble. This is when we can fall on our knees and turn to God and He will change us. If we love the world and ourselves more than God, we will never turn to Him. So, when we read a book to our kids, we need to make sure the book is not "puffing up the child's self-will, self-esteem, and pride" but instead painting a great, grand picture of how holy God is and how undeserving we are. It is this view that will lead our children to see the need for God and lead them to rely on Him for salvation.

This book destroys God from being infinitely holy and worthy of our worship and adoration. This book also destroys our view that we are unworthy, but instead makes children feel like we are holding all the cards and it is this weak, pathetic, wimpering god that is begging us to love him back. Few of our children will ever find Christ with this perspective. Read below my direct quotes from this book and see my explainations as to why these claims aren't true.

- Pg 1 First sentence "God wrote "I love you" - he wrote it in the sky, and on the earth, and under the sea." *****PROBLEM: The author immediately paints a picture that God loves "you" and is telling this to all people through creation. Who are the "you"? ALL CHILDREN. ALL PEOPLE. What about the unbelieving ones? This book says God loves those too! What about the sinning ones? The murdering ones? The evil ones? Well, this book just gives us a blanket statement "God loves you" whoever you are, regardless of who you are, despite who you are. Now, technically, I believe this is true. BUT the problem is that God can say "I love you" to the believers who go to heaven. But God can also say "I love you" to the believers who go to hell. But God's loving you isn't what keeps you out of hell or gets you to heaven. But to a child (and even most of us adults), this statement implies that because God loves you "you will go to heaven." But that's not the truth. This sentence is the theme of this entire book and it is completely misleading. Did Jesus EVER tell the unbelievers "God loves you?" No. That's because, although it may be true, it's not going to get anyone to realize their need of a savior.

- 2 "Some people think the Bible is a book of rules, telling you what you should and shouldn't do. The Bible certainly does have some rules in it. They show you how life works best. But the Bible isn't mainly about you and what you should be doing. It's about God and what he has done."
- 4 "The Bible isn't a book of rules, or a book of hereoes. The Bible is most of all a Story." *****PROBLEM: Suddenly, the author destroyed the real purpose of the Bible and turned it into a big story. Unfortunately, this "the Bible is just a story" like has become a very popular claim of non-Christians to destroy the authority of the Bible. If the Bible is a story, it loses it's application purposes and we aren't as obligated to take it so seriously anymore. It's just a guide, after all. It's just like all my other story books. Many of the top athiests use this argument.

- 4 "All the stories are telling one Big Story. The Story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them." *****PROBLEM: Again, this makes God weak and needy of our human love. We need to teach our children about the holiness of God. The awesomeness! The grandness! God isn't just INFINITELY PERFECT, He's infinitely, infinitely, infinitely perfect! He isn't just good. He's good plus more good, plus the greatest good that could ever be conceived and then even 10 times greater than that! And then 1000 times that! Then a trillion times that! God is SOOOO BEYOND even the word "Good"! It is only through holding God up as an awesome, amazing, powerful, all wise God, that humans will begin to worship Him. Why would we worship a weak God? We worship what is WORTHY OF WORSHIP. The reason we don't worship God or worship Him poorly is because we don't see God as ALL THAT GREAT. Try taking the best most holy character traits and magnifying them as 10 times your best image of them. Then multiply that times 1 million times that! You can't even conceive it! But if we can see the grandest view of God, our worship will be true and natural. This is what our kids need. A holy, lofty infinitely glorious view of God.

- 5 "And at the center of the Story, there is a baby." "This is no ordinary baby. This is the Child upon whom everything would depend." *****PROBLEM: Author lowered God to a fussy baby. Weak, powerless infant. He was only a baby for a year or two! If God wanted us to elevate a baby, the Bible would have been written as 27 books on the baby Jesus. No, the Bible was written about THE MAN Jesus! A full grown, powerful, glorious man with the fullness of God inside him. Now that is awesome! Not a weak helpless baby.

Then it switches to the Genesis story:
- 6 "In the Beginning, there was nothing. Only emptiness. And darkness. And... nothing but nothing. But God was there." *****PROBLEM: The author writes that there was nothing. Oh, but then tacks on at the end "I forgot to mention God happened to be there." No! This causes damage to God. It should be "God was ALL THERE WAS! The earth was not yet. There was nothing there! It should not be "Nothing was all there was. Oh, but God on the side." The author is putting God inside the box of creation. The author puts God inside the darkness, inside the physical universe, as if God lived on a planet or something. No, God is spirit and outside of time, earth, and the physical world. The creator is greater than the creation! The creation should not come first.

- 6 Like a mommy bird flutters her wings over her eggs to help her babies hatch, God hovered over the deep, silent darkness. He was making life happen." *****PROBLEM: Huh? Comparing God to a bird. That's insulting. A mother bird warms and shields her eggs under her wings. God was not "warming and shielding" the deep under a wing. He was creating!

- 7 "God said, "Hello light!" and light shone into the darkness. "You're good," God said." *****PROBLEM: Notice God did not create the light? He said "hi" to the light. The author has removed God as the creator. Now he's just an observer. Notice that God no longer declares or pronounces or makes this creation good, but observes it is good.
- 7-8 "The God said, "Hello sea! Hello sky!" "Hello land!" "Hello trees!" "Hello grass and flowers!" "Hello stars! Hello sun! Hello moon!" *****PROBLEM: The author removed the creation days, allowing for the possibility of an evolutionary millions of years. And again, God is no longer the creator but just the observer, noticing these things.
- 10 "God saw all that he had made and he loved them." *****PROBLEM: Now, finally, the author acknowledges that God made these things. But his glory and name has already been reduced because the credit for the creation was taken away from him in all the prior pages. This final summary is tacked on at the end but its weight is not at all similar to "God created the earth." "God created the animals." It's more like "God said hi to the animals. Then at the end, "Oh, God made them." The impact is not at all the same.

- 10 "He would make people to share his Forever Happiness." "Forever Happiness?" What's that? Heaven on earth? Life with Christ/God? But not everyone is going to share His "Forever Happiness". What about those who end up in eternal torment? "He would make people" but apparently not ALL people "share his Forever Happiness".

- 11 "So God breathed life into Adam and Eve." *****PROBLEM: Notice again, the author did not say that God created them. Adam being created from the earth is removed. Eve being created from Adam is removed.
- 11 "And when God saw them he was like a new daddy, "You look like me!" he said. "You're the most beautiful thing I've ever made!" *****PROBLEM: Again, the author is praising man for man's greatness! We need to be praising God, not man. We need to get off our egos, our pride, our selfishness, our self-esteem, self-worth and be God-centered, God-focused, God-esteeming!

On to the story of the fall:
- 13 "God had a horrible enemy. His name was Satan." *****PROBLEM: The author paints Satan as "God's enemy" or as a co-equal god. This is Dualism, not Christianity. In reality, God is an infinitely powerful God and Satan is just like an ant under God's shoe. God created Satan. Any moment He wanted, God could go "poof!" and Satan would be destroyed. Satan is no match for God. But this sentence makes Satan seem powerful.

- 13 "Satan was seething in anger and looking for a way to hurt God. He wanted to stop God's plan, stop this love story, right there. So he disguised himself as a snake and waited in the garden." *****PROBLEM: This sentence sets it up in the readers mind that Satan CAN hurt God. That Satan CAN stop God's plan and make God go find a Plan B. But this is false. Even Satan's plans and attempts to ruin things for God STILL fit into God's Plan A. God never has to go to a Plan B. This was God's plan all along - to include Satan and all Satan and man's sinfulness in the redemption story of Jesus Christ.

- 14 "As soon as the snake saw his chance, he slithered silently up to Eve, "Does God really love you?" the serpent whispered. "If he does, why won't he let you eat the nice, juicy, delicious fruit? Poor you, perhaps God doesn't want you to be happy." *****PROBLEM: Again, the author turns the fall into a question of God's love for man. The fall was NEVER about whether or not God loved man. It was about whether or not man would OBEY God and worship God and LOVE God back. God has always loved man and taken care of man. It is man (just like Satan), who rejected God and fell in his own desire to take God's place on the throne. Man wanted to make his own choices and be his own god. The author misses the entire point of Christianity and the entire need for salvation! God is not saving us BY PROVING HE LOVES US and convincing us that He loves us. No! That's not Christianity at all. That's man's false Christianity that allows man to stay on the throne! In fact, it makes God the weaker being in need of man's love so much that God must grovel for man's love. And man, being the powerful god, in man's mercy of God, will believe God and accept God. But Christianity is about God accepting a fallen man! It's not the story of man accepting God, even though we in our feeble minds sometimes thing the world revolves around us. We need God! God doesn't need us. God loves us whether we go to heaven or hell. Doesn't matter. The question of "does God love me" was never ever ever the issue. It's "Will man obey God and love God." Jesus NEVER begged anyone to believe that Christ loved them. He told them that THEY are to "Love God with all your mind and heart"

- 14 "Does God love me, Eve wondered. Suddenly she didn't know anymore." *****PROBLEM: This is NOT why Adam and Eve fell. They both knew God loved them. Firstly, the Bible teaches us that Eve was tricked. Adam, knowing 100% better, chose to DISOBEY God. Man thought he was wiser than God and wanted to take His throne or place. Man fell out of disobedience, not out of doubting love. Man fell out of pride, saying to himself "I am smarter and superior than God." It is the same reason Satan fell. Pride! This book encourages pride in children! It elevates man and lowers God in nearly every single sentence!

- 14 "And a terrible lie came into the world. It would never leave. It would live on in every human heart, whispering to every one of God's children: "God doesn't love me." *****PROBLEM: This is not the lie. The lie was "Man could eat the apple and be wiser than God! That God was wrong about the apple!" The lie isn't that God doesn't love man. The lie is that man doesn't need God!!!

- 17 "A terrible pain came into God's heart." "He knew everthing else would break. God's creation would start to unravel, and come undone, and go wrong. From now on everything would die - even though it was all supposed to last forever." *****PROBLEM: The author just painted the picture that things in the world happened against God's will and wishes and power. God was powerless to stop them. They crumbled around Him. It weakens the human's perception of God. Suddenly, God is not all-powerful, all-wise. He got tricked. His purposes were ruined by Satan and man! This is completely false. If we read the NT, we will see that the redemption story was planned from all eternity. This is why Jesus Christ is the ETERNAL son of God. He didn't just become the son of God to plop down on earth, take on a human body, then go back up and mold back into God. Ephesians 1:4 "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: 5Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved." Acts 4:27-28 "this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28 to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place." Ac 2:23 "this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men." 1 Pe 1:20 "He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you" Luke 22:22, Acts 13:27-33, and more.

- 20 "God loved his children too much to let the story end there. Even though he knew he would suffer, God had a plan - a magnificent dream. One day, he would get his children back." *****PROBLEM: God would get his children back. Which children? Not all the children will believe, so either God didn't do a very good job getting his children back (a weak view of God) or God never mean to get all them back. The truth is that not all will be saved and so God never planned from the foundation of the earth that all would be saved. If he had planned for all to be saved, all he had to do was go "poof" to Satan and no one would have fallen in the first place. The redemption story was planned from the beginning and so was the means through Satan and man's fall. But this sentence makes it seem like God couldn't do what he planned to do. When the truth is that God DID and IS doing exactly what He wanted all along. The error was in man's assuming he knew God's plan. So we think God made an error. God never made an error. God always had this ONE plan from the beginning. If God didn't want this, He had the power to change it at any time.

- 20 "You see, no matter what, in spite of everything, God would love his children - with a Never Stopping, Never Give Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love." *****PROBLEM: What about the ones that go to eternal torment? Again, this makes children believe in Universalism - the belief that ALL people will be saved. This is not what is taught in the Bible.

On to the New Testament:
- "It had taken centuries for God's people to be ready, but now the time had almost come..." *****PROBLEM: This is the false teaching that God had to wait for man to be ready to receive Jesus Christ. This is a prevelant teaching among today's tv evangelists of the Word Faith cult. It makes God dependent upon man. "God needs man to allow God to work in the world" is the false teaching. This sentence supports that teaching. And so does the two beginning sentences on the following page: "EVERYTHING WAS READY. The moment God had been waiting for was here at last!" Yes, it was in all caps! It teaches children falsely that God had to wait until this time due to man not being ready. The truth was God planned this time all along and ordained everything to be just as it was. God is in control. He isn't dependent upon man.
- "There was a young girl who was engaged to a man" PROBLEM: "A girl" not a "young woman" is matched to "a man". The implication is not good.
- "This girl was minding her own business when suddenly a great warrior of light appeared - right there in her bedroom." PROBLEM: Yikes! Angels appearing in a girls bedroom is not a good picture. Today, it is a very very prevelant claim of several Pentecostal authors, Course In Miracles teachers, alien abductees, and pagan spiritualists that "beings of light come into a person's bedroom" and these beings go by names like "Jesus" "Michael" "Seth" "George" or aliens. These are demons and not Jesus Christ or angels! This sentence leaves room for this teaching. In the Bible in Luke chapter 1, it says that an angel came to see Mary but NOTHING is said about it being in her bedroom or even where this meeting took place.
- "So [God] pulled out all the stops. He'd sent an angel to tell Mary the good news. He'd put a special star in the sky to show where his boy was." PROBLEM: Not true. Nowhere in the Bible does God tell Mary about the star. The first mention of the start is when the wisemen see it and this is when Jesus is declared "a child" and no longer "a baby". It is assumed Jesus was about 2 years old at this time.
- [This book also teaches incorrectly that there were THREE wisemen (the Bible doesn't tell how many there were)
- "The three Wise Men (actually, if you'd met them, you'd have thought they were kings because they were so rich and clever and important looking) set off." PROBLEM: The Bible never says any of this.

The book has a chapter called "How to pray":
- "In those days there were some Extra-Super-Holy People (at least that's what they thought), and they were called "Pharisees"." PROBLEM: Notice the author doesn't explain why the Pharisees were wrong: they were trying to get saved through self-righteous works. Actually, the author doesn't even really say the Pharisees were not holy. They were sinful on the inside and hypocritically fake holy/pure on the outside. Their good deeds were only external. Children should be taught that it is the inside that counts, but the author implies the opposite.
- "People walking by would stop and stare, which might sound rude - except that's exactly what the Extra-Super-Holy People wanted. They wanted everyone to say, "Look at them. They're so holy. God must love those people best." PROBLEM:
- "Now you and I both know they were wrong - God doesn't just love holy people." PROBLEM: The author implies that these holy people were accepted and loved by God for their holy works! This is incorrect. God rejected them for their external holy works and told them to look at their inner hearts to see how evil they actually were! In fact, in the Bible, God despises holy people for trying to work or earn their way into eternal life. We get to heaven by realizing how unworthy we are, not how holy and worthy we are. These are fake holy people and the author should have portrayed it like this.
- The Lord's prayer is written like this: "Hello Daddy! We want to know you. And be close to you. Please show us how. Make everything in the world right again. And in our hearts, too. Do what is best - just like you do in heaven. And please do it down here too. Please give us everything we need today. Forgive us for doing wrong, for hurting you. Forgive us just as we forgive other people when they hurt us. Rescue us! We need you. We don't want to keep running away and hiding from you. Keep us safe from our enemies. You're strong, God. You can do wahtever you want. You are in charge. Now and forever and for always! We think you're great! Amen! Yes we do!" PROBLEM: God had been brought down to the place of an imaginary invisible friend. Children and adults are taught not to revere, respect or to admire and worship a holy holy HOLY infinitely HOLY God. He is no longer grand and awesome. He's just like your invisible imaginary pal. The Bible's prayer starts of giving reverence to God "Blessed be your name" "Your will be done" shows we trust God's ways and His will and want His will done and not our own wills done. "Give us our daily bread" shows that we acknowledge every good thing is from God. Even our daily food and needs are provided by God.

I could go on, but I hope readers get the point. This book destroys the awesomeness of God and turns Him into a weak imaginary friend who asks the child to "do this or be that" and the child will then listen to the advice of their "friend" and dismiss them anyway. This view of God has no power. This weak god is nothing that man should worship him. But OUR GOD is AWESOME, POWERFUL and AMAZING! If we teach children of the REAL God who created the bazillion stars in the night sky and created the Grand Canyon and Hawaii and the oceans and the intricate human eye etc, then they will worship him in their hearts, seeing how valuable He really is.